I first noticed the site of the ancient Egyptian port Berenike Trogodytika five years ago. I was interested, as I said at the time, because the city was named after the Ptolemaic queen Berenice I. She was the wife of Ptolemy I. He is mentioned as "the king of the south" in Daniel 11:5.
Since then the site has continued to produce remarkable discoveries, including the Berenike Buddha, the pet cemetery, and important epigraphic finds in a trash dump. For all my Berenike posts, see the links collected in that last post.
This long and thorough Smithsonian article has the most detailed coverage of the excavation I have seen. A couple of excerpts:
From Berenike, cargoes were carried by camel caravan to Coptos, on the Nile, shipped down the river to Alexandria, and from there to Rome and the rest of the Mediterranean world. Excavations are now confirming the wealth and breadth of the goods passing through Berenike in both directions, yielding pottery from Spain and Morocco; frankincense and resin from South Arabia; beads from Thailand or Vietnam and even Java. And “just tons” of Indian material, says Sidebotham, including gems and pearls, woven mats and baskets, as well as rice and a jar containing more than 16 pounds of peppercorns, the largest such cache from antiquity ever found.Just about the only thing not found so far is a direct connection to the Hebrew Bible or ancient Judaism. But I do note the presence of cedar from Lebanon, which is another indirect connection. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if something direct turns up.At the same time, the archaeologists are discovering what the literary sources don’t describe: the mechanics of life in an ancient intercontinental port. Around the main harbor they have found the remains of planking from ships built on both sides of the ocean (cedar from Lebanon, teak from Kerala); workshops and storehouses; and huge ropes and torn sails. ...
Perhaps the most prominent feature of the town, though, is a profusion of shrines. “You stumble from one religious institution to another,” Sidebotham jokes. There’s the northern complex, which featured chapels of various cults built over the centuries, including one that contained the remains of 15 falcons. Elsewhere, there’s a third-century A.D. shrine dedicated to deities from Palmyra, Syria, and a Christian church, dating to the fifth century, in which archaeologists found a lamp inscribed with the message “Jesus, forgive me.”
Meanwhile, Berenike Trogodytika continues to give us new knowledge about real day-to-day life in a Ptolemaic and late antique Egyptian port.
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